The Movie - Part 1

Kirsten spent ages cutting together this video of the first six months of our travels. Enjoy! Note: If this doesn't work, use the lower quality version embedded below.

Tokyo

Fresh from two days of hiking, onsen hoping, and not quite seeing mount Fuji, we returned to Tokyo on Friday night. Our kind host's (Jamie) flat is in the embassy district, and the directions to turn left at the policeman with the big white stick, proved very useful. The close by nightlife area of Roppongi is firmly an expat district, and it's difficult to walk down the street without someone trying to drag you into a strip club.

For dinner we settled on a Tokyo rarity – a vegetarian restaurant. This was a true one man outfit (across the hall from a strip club). We sat at the bar, as the chef weaved magic with a big knife, turning mere vegetables into tasty dishes.

The next day, needing to book some Palau accommodation, we found not so much an internet cafe, as an internet hotel. The place had some 100 cubicles with a range of seating options including fully reclining – judging by the feet sticking out under the doors, many people we having a nap. There's also free soft drinks and ice-cream, plus as much Manga as you can shake a stick at. So for about £2.50 an hour (and much cheaper if you stay a long time), it's little wonder some people seem to live in there.

We didn't have the energy or the inclination to do any real sightseeing, so instead spent the afternoon with Jamie in the electronics district. I was aware of manga porn, but was a little surprised by the shear amount of it, and more disturbingly the fact that much of it would be illegal in the UK, as it seemed to depict prepubescent girls. On a more positive note, there is so much lovely electronics to play with.















Evening dinner was sushi – a bit like the vegetarian place, except blokes with big knifes chopped up fish in plain sight. Behind where they worked was an enormous tank, filled with some pretty big fish. Every so often, someone would reach in with a net and extract a fish, which was swiftly executed. The chef would hold the fish aloft, as a bell was rung. People then shouted out their orders for really fresh sushi. There was also whale on the menu, although this didn't come from the tank.

For the first time in months we treated Sunday like a Sunday. We stayed in bed till noon, did very little in the afternoon, then Kirsten cooked dinner and we watched a DVD (Election with Reese Witherspoon). Great.

Monday got off to a bad start after we found out that Continental had cancelled our Yap to Manila flight, and hadn't bother to tell us about it (or indeed refund the money). This was a problem, what with they being the only airline that fly to Yap, and us not wanting to spend the rest of our lives playing castaway. Anyway, after 40 minutes (or about 70 quid) on the phone to a thicky, Kirsten managed to get us a flight out, although it is unfortunately routed back via Guam, turning a 2 hour flight into a 17 hour slog. Bastards.

We spent the rest of the day in department stores, before dining in Hard Rock cafe (I hadn't had a veggie burger since Moscow).

Hakone

We arrived in Tokyo around 7ish Wednesday evening, and found our way easily to Jamie's flat opposite the Russian embassy, for 6 nights of free loading (see Tokyo entry). The plan was to head out early the next day for an overnight stay in the Hakone area unencumbered by our bags.



Hakone is a large, geothermically active area, with mountains, a lake, and plenty of onsens (Japanese natural hot spas). Mount Fuji looms over the area, although you need a particularly clear day to see it; we saw its silhouette from the train, but that was the last of it for that day.


















After arranging accommodation through the tourist office in Yumoto, we boarded the switchback train to take us up the mountain to Gora. From here a fairly long funicular takes you to the first cable car station. My plan was to start hiking from here, but Kirsten overruled, and we took the cable car to Owakudani first. As the car comes over the ridge, you are presented with a view of a scared mountainside, devoid of life due to the toxic gases spewing from the earth. From here we hiked up the hill, through some very sickly looking trees. Every few minutes we past signs warning of the toxic gases, and to get off the mountain ASAP if the siren started – the eye stinging and stench of rotten eggs was bad enough already. We hiked for 90 minutes (and saw no one after the first 20) to a peak that I hoped would give us great view of mount Fuji – we couldn't even work out what direction it was meant to be in.














The plan was to hike the remaining hour or so to the Komagatake ropeway, then get this down to Lake Ashi. However, after a well marked and obvious path up, the route down quickly became tough going, and at times we found ourselves in muddy ravines with six foot banks. Only the sight of the occasional footprint convinced us we were going in the right direction. Safely down, and after some bus catching incompetence we made it to our hotel, where I dined on two cartons of mirco-chips from a vending machine (they were really bad).



Japan is famed for its onsens, so we decided to spend the next morning in a large complex across the road. This place (in Kowaki-en if you fancy it), is onsen meets Butlins - tacky, but fun. There's a coffee onsen, plus a green tea, and a red wine one. Each had a sign warning you not to drink the water, but in the interests of scientific discovery I had a go – while the coffee smelt of coffee the taste was altogether different. Other notable areas were the Dead sea Bath and Rodeo mountain, with slides for 32 year old kids. But the oddest thing there, was a small pool full off little fish. You sit on the side, dangle you feet in, then cringe uncontrollably as fifty fish descend on you and start picking dead skin off your feet. It's not a nice feeling, but the Japanese seemed completely unphased by it. We chicken out of a second go.




After lunch we got a bus back down to the lake, where mount Fuji had decided to make a brief, if somewhat hazy, appearance. The transport up the lake is by way of mock pirate ship (I was pleased to see Coity on the map of Britain). By the time we'd boarded the cable car back to Owakudani, Fuji had all but disappeared, leaving us only with postcards of “here's what it looks like on a (rare) clear day”.

Monkey Magic

Yudanaka
After another bus and two train journeys, in the evening we arrived in Yudanaka, a hot spring village famed for being home to a troop of Japanese Macaques, or “snow monkeys”, who like to hang out in the hot spring baths alongside the river in their mountain home. We were initially apprehensive that the monkeys may be difficult to find so got very excited when we saw one scurry down the banking on approach to the park where they live. However, we needn't of worried as there were around 50 hanging out around their main spa pool. As the park has been operating for over 40 years now, and the monkeys are enticed to the pool by food, they are really only semi-wild. There are, however, no barriers between you and the monkeys and they are free to come and go as they please. It is a great experience being at such close quarters to them watching them going about their business, which mostly consists of grooming, followed by a spot of bathing the spa and some occasional fighting. Sounds like a pretty good life to me. It was a shame not to see them in the snow, but still the 300 plus photos that Richard and I managed to take in little over an hour attest to how much we enjoyed the experience. Luckily for you we've only selected a handful to post on the blog. They have their own live cam here. And here's a video we made. Sooo Cute.

Tsumago

After several large cities we decided it was time to see a more rural slide of Japan and so headed into Central Honshu. To get to the small village that we selected from the guidebook somewhat randomly required us to take three different trains and a bus. This all went with clockwork efficiency – it really helps that the trains are so punctual here.

We arrived in Tsumago, an Edo era post town in the alpine Kiso Valley region, unfortunately in the pouring rain. Surrounded by thick forest, and next to an attractive alpine river, the village has been carefully reconstructed to recreate the picturesque charm of this important rest stop for feudal lords travelling back and forth to Edo, complete with black and white wooden houses, small channels of water and water wheels. Of course this means that there were plenty of Japanese tourists there as well, but perhaps because of the poor weather or that we have missed the peak summer season, it wasn't completely overrun and managed to retain considerable charm.

We spent the night in a traditional Ryoken (Japanese inn). It was, however, one that was used to having Western guests so we duly received instruction on how to wear our (fastening right over left and not vice versa which is a simple of death), use the cedar wood communal bath and eat the various dishes served for dinner. Although the ryoken was a little faded around the edges, it did have a lovely garden complete with enormous Koi. The highlight was the dinner which consisted of a vast array of intricate beautifully presented and scrumptious morsels including baked river fish, river trout sashimi, beef marinated in fresh miso and cooked at the table, and the pièce de résistance – bee larvae. They even managed to produce some pretty decent vegetarian fare for Richard, although they took some convincing that bee larvae was not considered a vegetarian food.

The next day we took a bus to the nearby, and equally pretty, post town of Magome, and did the well sign posted hike back to Tsumago. This was a lovely walk through along the route of the ancient highway through the forest and past a couple of waterfalls.

kyoto

Osaka
We'd booked for three nights in a Ryoken in Kyoto, but given the speed and ease of the rail system, and the fact we had to change at Osaka anyway, we decided to have a look around. Japanese train stations tend to have lots of lockers spread over their underground mazes. Unfortunately ones big enough for our enormous packs are thinner on the ground, and tend to be in use. So we dumped our packs with a bemused gentleman at a manned left luggage (Japan has a system of baggage forwarding, and people don't seem to travel with our quantity of stuff).
Turned around, and amongst the skyscrapers of Osaka business district, we stumbled into a mall (again, Japanese cities seem to be build on top of a warren of connecting malls), and joined the back of a queue at a noddle joint. Sat down at the counter, we were instructed in, by way of mime, the finer points of noddle slurping. Osaka's big draw is its night life, so at lunch time on a rainy Friday, the next best things was the Umeda Sky Building – a pair of skyscrapers joined at the top by a circular crown, serving as an observation platform. The way up is fun (a glass elevator to just below the level of the crown, followed by an enclosed escalator across the void) and the view – a metropolis spread out below you – is never tiring.








Kyoto
Kyoto is Japan's cultural heart. It boasts no fewer than 17 UNESCO World Heritage sites, and hundreds of other shrines and temples. We started of course in the Train station. This is supposedly a modern architectural masterpiece, unfortunately we missed it the first time through, having been turned around marking our way from the Shinkansen platforms, and turning a 5 minute walk to our ryoken, into a half-hour slog.
It turns out the JR station is fairly impressive, with a huge glass roof high above the concourse. Banks of escalators at either end, rising 13 floors to the roof level, where a walkway over the concourse connects them. Dining in a train station is not taboo in Japan, and up on floors 12 and 13 all the restaurants have fine views over the cityscape. I secured myself some tofu dishes by saying “tofu” a lot to the waitress.

For our first day of sightseeing we took a self guided walking tour around Southern Higashiyama. Unfortunately the world and his mother were taking the same route (bloodly lonely Planet). Temple number one was Kiyomizu-Dera. This is a 17th century reconstruction of a temple that originally dates from the 8th century. Being perhaps Kyoto's most famous site, it was busy, but the grounds are fairly extensive, so the crowds were not overwhelming. Interestingly the were lots of young women (usually in pairs), dressed in Kimonos, undertaking a spot of sightseeing. I can only assume that in the same way that the Scots wear kilts to go on the piss, Japanese woman like to wear Kimonos while visiting historical sites.
Several pretty streets selling tourist knick-knacks later, and after passing a couple of Geishas (I assume they were real Geishas, and not the scrag ends of a Japanese hen party), we arrived at temple number two: Kodai-Ji. This is again a beautiful place, set amongst extensive formal gardens. Unfortunately temple fatigue comes all too quickly after three months of travel, and one temple begins to look like any other. Our final temple was Chion-In, headquarters of the Jodo school of Buddhism. We arrived shortly before kicking out time, and Kirsten could barely summon the energy to take more than a few dozen photos. We escaped to the downtown for some much needed coffee.

Day two started with the anticlimax of Higashi Hongan-Ji. This temple was just across the road from our Ryoken. Unfortunately, until 2011, it is encased in a massive metal hanger, while the cracking timbers are repaired. You can still go inside, and on display is the rope used to hoist the largest beams to the ceiling. Unremarkable enough, except this rope is made from human hair donated by faithful women. Yuk.

Kyoto isn't all temples. Next on our list was Nijo-Jo castle. Built in 1603 as the residence of the Shogun, it's an attractive palace and gardens, with inner and outer walls and moats, together with special squeaky floor boards in case a ninja came calling.
Faced with a full afternoon of sightseeing ahead of us, we headed to the mall, where I bought a tee-shirt that said “stupid foreigner” in Japanese, and Kirsten bought some shoes.
The guide books say spend a week in Kyoto (with a day trip to Nara). This may be true if you hadn't spend three months seeing every church and temple from the Balkans to Beijing.

Hiroshima

In Many ways Hiroshima is just another large Japanese city. However it's forever infamous with the events of August 6th 1945, where it become the world's first target of a nuclear strike.

The weapon "Little Boy" was a Uranium fission device, that detonated 600m above the city (to maximise damage) with an equivalent yield of around 15 kilotons of TNT (a mere fire cracker next to the 50 megaton H-bomb the Soviets tested in 1961) . The force of the blast and the subsequent fires destroyed almost every building for a mile around the hypocentre, and killed 70,000 people - up to twice this many eventually died from burns and radiation related illnesses.

Remarkably some reinforced building very close to the hypocentre partially survived, due the fact the blast pressure was acting almost vertically downwards. One of there buildings, the Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition, has been preserved in its immediate post bombing state; the A-Bomb Dome (Hiroshima Peace Memorial) now stands as a UNESCO world heritage site.

Across the river from the A-Bomb Dome, is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, containing several monuments and the Peace Memorial Museum. The park and museum have a dual role as memorial and disarmament focus. The museum itself covers the bombing and its aftermath, the military/political decisions that put Hiroshima on the top of the target list, and details about current world stockpiles. Whilst not overtly condemning the bombing, it highlights America's geopolitical posturing regarding postwar relations with Russia, rather than the position of a necessary evil to bring an end to a hideous war.

Unsurprisingly, bus loads of Japanese school children are dragged round here everyday. The younger ones bound over to read question like "What is your name?" from their English language exercise books, while their teacher takes photo. The older ones just seem thoroughly bored with the whole experience.

Himeji, Okayama, Kurashiki

Today was our first experience of Japanese trains, and we were suitably impressed - surprisingly easy to navigate, ruthlessly efficient and of course fast. The only problem is with such short journey's you just don't get time to relax!


We decided to take a couple of days to make our way down to Hiroshima, stopping at a couple of places on the way. First was Himeji which is famed for having what is reputed to be one of Japan's most magnificent castles. Given that they are mostly built from wood, Himeji-jo, sometimes called the 'white heron', is one of only a handful surviving in it's original form. Despite there being little to see inside, and a large number of tourists, the castle still manages to be an impressive and peaceful place to visit.

Our next stop was Okayama which is home to Koraku-en, reportedly one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan. It is small but perfectly formed, with lawns interrupted by ponds full of koi carp crossed by bridges and stepping stones. A lovely place to spend a couple of hours. Okayama itself is a pleasant relaxed town. We also managed to find Richard the perfect lunch in a small restaurant which served nothing but tofu. We ordered one of the two set menus via much pointing, nodding and smiling. It was surprisingly tasting and it is amazing how many dishes they managed to create.
















Our final stop was in Kurashiki where the main appeal is a canal lined by black and white wooden buildings. With willow trees drooping into the canal and arched bridges to pose for photos on, it is a very pretty and atmospheric place.

A short note on toilets: I had no idea how many features were possible on a simple loo. So far I have seen: water that automatically flows when you sit down (apparently to protect your modesty); a speaker playing the sound of running water when you sit down (to achieve the previous yet save water); several different types of bidet water spray including temperature control; hot air to dry your posterior; a lid that automatically lifts when you approach; a heated seat and a light that comes on in the bowl (why?). I wouldn't want to be sitting on one if the software crashed...

Kobe

Having travelled through 15 countries, used 8 different currencies, spent 290 hours on trains, 105 on boats, and 25 hours of road travel, we have finally arrived in Japan. Really I don't know why people bother with planes! But first a few final comments about our sea voyage.















In the afternoon of day two at sea we spotted land off the starboard side. This was the south western island of Kyushu, which we followed until passing under the bridge that connects Kyushu with the main island, Honshu, in the evening. We sailed through the Inland Sea at night, then, at early morning, accompanied with blue sky and bright sunshine, something we hadn't seen at all in China, we docked in Kobe. After some waiting around (for no clear reason) and having had our temperature taken (to check for bird flu) we finally set foot in Japan.



Things got off to a bit of shaky start as we didn't have any idea where our hotel was, didn't have any Japanese Yen, there were no ATM or currency exchange facilities at the port, the ticket machines for the metro didn't take cards and needless to say neither Richard nor I speak a word of Japanese. Luckily a friendly taxi driver appeared from nowhere who took credit cards. Our first example of how things here are designed to make life much easier, in particular compared to our experiences in Russia and China.















Kobe appears to be an attractive and cosmopolitan town wedged between forest covered mountains and the sea and with and abundance of flashy department stores together with some traditional narrow streets and wooden buildings. I could have spent hours wandering around the food hall admiring the beautifully prepared sweets, vast arrays of fish and of course, Kobe beef. Instead we caught the cable car up the hill behind the city, which provided panoramic views and a lovely walk back down through the forest, and past a very scenic waterfall.
















We finished the day rather extravagantly with cocktails on the 36 floor of our hotel which had splendid views across the city. I could not then miss the opportunity to sample some Kobe beef which was to die for – melt in the mouth tenderness with incredible flavour. Richard had a pizza.